Jewish-Languages Mailing List: November 2001

November 2001

A question from Alison Bastow, who's not on the list. Please respond
directly to her at the address below.

I am a graduate student and am working on a project concerning language
use during the Holocaust. While I have found numerous sources for the
Nazi corruption of language during this time, I have found very little in
regard to Jewish language/changes that may have occurred. Could you point
me in the direction of some resource or person that may be able to give me
information on this?

Thank You,
Alison Bastow
tpbasb @ bellsouth.net

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sun, 04 Nov 2001 15:55:50 +0200
From: Ron Kuzar kuzar @ research.haifa.ac.il
Subject: Session on Language and Ideology

Call for Papers:

The Israeli Association for the Study of Language and Society is holding
its Annual Meeting on Sunday-Monday, May 5-6, 2002, at Tel-Aviv
University. The general theme of the conference is "Language and
Identity in a Multicultural Society".

I have been asked to organize a session on "Language and Ideology".

Papers in this session may be purely theoretical or they may be case
studies, keeping an attentive eye on their general theoretical horizon.
Naturally, some of the speakers will discuss issues of Israeli society,
but other topics are equally welcome.

I look at this session as an opportunity to exchange ideas on the very
nexus of language and ideology and its theoretical foundations. Some
points I find worthy of discussion are:

* the extent to which the study of language and ideology is a
multidisciplinary project.
* Centrality and marginality in the interaction between ideological
metanarratives, such as class, race, ethnicity, religion, gender,
nationalism, [post]colonialism, regional identity, globalization.
* The nature of communication between the oppressor and the oppressed.
* The discourse of building coalitions and fronts: attitudes towards
variation, partial disagreement, and mutual critique.
* The role of cognitive constructs (metaphors, etc.) in a more general
theory of language and ideology.
* The stability/variability of ideologies, and the linguistic encoding
of multiplicity/change.
* The specific role of linguistics in the general study of ideology.
* Discursive harmony between (supposedly) different ideologies.

The language of the conference is Hebrew, and due to budgetary
limitations there will be no interpreting service available, but
lectures in English are welcome. (If there are enough English speaking
participants, others may be willing to present in English as well.)

Please send preliminary letters of interest or queries to me by December
1, 2001. The deadline for submitting abstracts to be included in the
conference booklet has been set to February 28, 2002.

Posted to cogling, critics-l, discours, funknet, language & culture, and
linganth. Feel free to distribute to other relevant forums.

====================================
 Dr. Ron Kuzar
Address: Department of English Language and Literature
 University of Haifa
 IL-31905 Haifa, Israel
Office: +972-4-824-9826, fax: +972-4-824-9711
Home: +972-2-6414780, Cellular: +972-5-481-9676
Email: kuzar @ research.haifa.ac.il
Site: http://research.haifa.ac.il/~kuzar
====================================

From: Benjamin H. Hary bhary @ Emory.Edu

Call for Papers:

The Israeli Association for the Study of Language and Society is holding
its Annual Meeting on Sunday-Monday, May 5-6, 2002, at Tel-Aviv
University. The general theme of the conference is "Language and
Identity in a Multicultural Society".

I have been asked to organize a session on "Dialects in Israel."

I look at this session as an opportunity to exchange ideas on the use of
dialects in Israel and its connection to the society. Some ideas:

* the use of dialects among Hebrew speakers (Haredi speech, "Ramat-Aviv
Gimel" speech etc.)
* the use of Jewish languages/ethnolects/dialects in Israel
* Arabic dialects in Israel: geographical and sociological
* The role of English/French/Russian/Amharic dialects in Israel
* dialectology variety in Israel
* the connection between use of dialects and ideology, society
behavior,etc.

The language of the conference is Hebrew, and due to budgetary
limitations there will be no interpreting service available, but
lectures in English are welcome. (If there are enough English speaking
participants, others may be willing to present in English as well.)

Please send preliminary letters of interest or queries to me (e-mail) by
December 20, 2001. The deadline for submitting abstracts to be included in
the conference booklet has been set to February 28, 2002.

Benjamin Hary
bhary @ emory.edu

2 queries from H-Judaic. Please respond to those who posted.
-Sarah

From: R Toubes rtoubes @ hotmail.com
Subject: Query: Shuadit music
I am a 3rd year cantorial student and I am doing some preliminary research
for my thesis. I am wondering if anyone on this listserv can help me with
the topic of Shuadit/Judeo-provencal. I am specifically interested in
whether there is any surviving music written in Shuadit, as I understand it
is essentially an extinct language. Also: I read on a statistics website
that there is an expert in this language named Paul Wexler, and I was
wondering if anyone has contact with him.
Thank you so very much,
Rosalie Toubes
rtoubes @ hotmail.com

------------------------------

From: Jonathan Omer-Man jomerman @ pipeline.com
Subject: Dictionaries

I have three questions, and would appreciate any help from participants in
this group.

1. What comprehensive Hebrew-Hebrew dictionaries are available now. Are any
of them available on CD?
2. What Hebrew-Arabic Arabic-Hebrew dictionaries are recommended and
available?
3. Is there a comprehensive lexicon of Hebrew-Arabic cognates?

Thank you,

Jonathan Omer-Man

The Israeli Association for the Study of Language and Society announces
its new website:

http://www.tau.ac.il/~ials

In addition, this association has a mailing list. You can register at:

http://post.tau.ac.il/archives/il-langsoc.html

For more information, contact Eliezer Ben-Rafael saba @ post.tau.ac.il.

-Sarah Bunin Benor

Message from: Yitzhak Sternberg sternber @ post.tau.ac.il
Secretary of IALS

Dear colleague,

Kindly note that the first annual conference of the Israeli Association
for the Study of Language and Society (IALS) will be held in Tel Aviv
University, May 5-6 2002.

The conference's theme is "Language and Identity in a Multicultural
Society".

The conference, as the association itself, is open to scholars and
people who are interested in the variety of aspects related to the
connections between language and society. The conference is organized
around main topics such as: language and identity; language, culture and
society; multilingualism and multiculturalism; Jewish and non-Jewish
languages; language and globalization; language and education; language
and immigration; language and stratification; language and ideology;
language and communication; language and gender; language and the
life-cycle; language policy.

The conference is also open to non-Israeli participants. Please note
that the deadline for sending session proposals is January 15 2002 and
the deadline for sending article abstracts is February 28 2002. The
relevant forms, as well as other information about IALS, are available
in our website: www.tau.ac.il/~ials

Cordially,
Eliezer Ben-Rafael
Chair of IALS

Dear Colleagues,
The conference's theme is excellent, but, alas, the time is bad for
scholars from the USA. It is practically impossible to travel all
the way from California to Israel and back when the academic school
is still going on. Our school ends only after June 15. A summer
conference enables us to attend the conference and stay in Israel a
longer period for a visit and scholarly work.

I hope you'll take this into consideration in planning future conferences.

shalom ve-khol Tuv,

Yona Sabar

I second Prof. Sabar's opinion. It is very difficult for the persons
employed by American academic institutions to travel to Israel before
end of June.

Dr. Hayim Y. Sheynin
Adjunct Professor of Jewish Literature
Head of Reference Services
Tuttleman Library of Gratz College
7605 Old York Rd.
Melrose Park, PA 19027

tel. 215 635-7300, ext. 161 fax: 215 635-7320
e-mail: hsheynin @ gratz.edu

The conference is very important and interesting but is problemmatic for
those of us who teach in the US and perhaps other places. It is probably
too late to change the dates- and this problem is not news to the
organizers. Perhaps a parallel conference can be held in tandem on this
continent. One aspect of multiculturalism is working with conflicting
calendars.
Miriam Isaacs

Miriam Isaacs, Meyerhoff Center for Jewish Studies
Office phone # 301 405 0264

Jews often have unique ways of speaking their local language. Jewish
varieties of English, French, Spanish, Russian, and Turkish, for example,
include influences in lexicon, syntax, phonology, and discourse from
Hebrew, Yiddish, Ladino, and/or Judeo-Arabic. I am coordinating a panel
on this phenomenon for the first Annual Meeting of the Israeli Association
for the Study of Language and Society.

Questions to be addressed by this panel include:
· What can contemporary Jewish varieties of English, French, etc.,
tell us about the development of Jewish languages?
· What can they tell us about the communities that speak them?
· What role does ideology play in the development of these
varieties?
· What social factors (e.g., religiosity, learnedness, gender,
interaction with non-Jews, generation since immigration) affect variation
within these varieties?
· Can these varieties be considered Jewish languages?

The conference will take place May 5-6, 2002, at Tel-Aviv University in
Israel. The general theme of the conference is Language and Identity in a
Multicultural Society. Conference papers may be presented in Hebrew or
English.

To submit a paper to this panel, please send a preliminary description of
your paper to Sarah Bunin Benor <sbenor @ stanford.edu> by December 20,
2001. Final abstracts will be due to the Association in February.

Sarah Bunin Benor
Stanford University

Dear List,
 This is a short introduction. My name is Simeon D. (Shimon) Baumel
and I am a doctoral candidate at Bar-Ilan University in Israel. My research
deals with the language policy of ethnic minorities as influenced by social,
political, religious and economic constraints and I am specializing in the
language policies of four Haredi groups in Israel.
 In addition, I have dealt with speakers of Judeo-Tat in Israel, with teaching
English in Haredi schools in Israel, with language and Haredi publications
(newspapers, magazines, and weekly Torah Portion Pages distributed in
many synagoguges) and with sexist language in general Israeli advertising.
 I've also dealt with photooxidation of organic compounds (I was originally
an M.A. research organic chemist before becoming a linguist - shades of William
Labov...)